In spite of the failure of the two previous expeditions to Camboja, the governor, Don Francisco Tello, judged it desirable to send another ship with troops, and asked the order to send some of their friars with it. The father provincial directed that father Fray Juan de S. Pedro Martyr (or Maldonado) and father Fray Pedro Jesus (or de la Bastida) should go. Father Fray Juan was then commissary of the Holy Office. He was a native of Alcala de Guadiana, [25] and belonged to a rich and honorable family. He studied canon law at Salamanca, and assumed the habit in the illustrious convent of San Pablo at Valladolid. The influence of Father Juan Chrisostomo attracted him to the new province to be established in the Philippinas Islands. When he was about to set forth, a certain Doctor Bobadilla, a canon in the church in Valladolid, took him to one side and assured him that he was to die a martyr; and this prophecy was corroborated by another devoted monk. It was on this account that he changed his name of Maldonado to that of S. Pedro Martyr. He spent his first year in the Philipinas in Manila; and in his second year was sent as vicar to a village in Pangasinan, which was at that time the most difficult in the province. From that place he was transferred to the vicariate of Bataan, the language of which he learned very well. When Father Juan Cobo went as ambassador to Japon, father Fray Juan was assigned to the mission to the Chinese, being thus required to learn a third language in addition to the two which he already knew. He learned more words of the Chinese language than any other member of the order, though he was not successful with the pronunciation. He assisted the Chinese so much that they named him as their protector; and he was, as it were, the advocate of their causes, so that they became very much attached to him, and listened with good-will to his preaching and his corrections. During the absence of the father provincial in Camboja, the province could find no one more suitable to govern it in his place, and accordingly father Fray Juan was nominated as vicar-general. In the following provincial chapter he was appointed lecturer in theology, for there was nothing which the province did not find him competent to do. He made no objection to carrying out any orders that were given him, although they dragged him about hither and thither, causing him to learn so many languages and immediately to drop them again. This is a great evidence of his obedience and subjection to his superior. His reputation outside of the order was very great.] The tribunal of the Holy Office of Mexico appointed him commissary-general of the Philippinas, which office he filled with the prudence and strength of mind which the Lord has given in these regions to the sons of the first inquisitor-general, our father St. Dominic. Don Luis Perez das Mariñas, a wise and holy knight, refused to accept the governorship of